What's with the 'S' word?

May 29, 2011

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How it got here

In October, Chittenden County's ECOS (Environment, Community, Opportunity and Sustainability) project was awarded $995,000 by the U.S. departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

It was one of 45 recipients nationwide of federal "Sustainable Communities" grants.

The three-year project aims to build on emerging collaborations in housing, transportation, healthcare, industry and land-use planning among some 60 regional communities, businesses, state agencies and nonprofits.

Behind the name

ECOS is a rich "brand," said David Raphael, principal at Middlebury-based LandWorks and the public-outreach consultant hired for the three-year sustainability planning project in Chittenden County.

The acronym's origins, Raphael said, come from the Greek "oikos," which means "earth household" — and forms the root of both "economy" and "ecology."

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From IBM to the Intervale, from Burlington to Buels Gore — an ambitious new project in Chittenden County attempts to define a "sustainable" future.

Chief among the tasks is giving useful meaning to the "S-word."

Skeptics might wonder: Has "sustainable," among this decade's fastest-moving adjectives, hit a brick wall, if not the proverbial fan?

One day last week, for the second time this year, about 60 members of a steering committee met to pin down what has become a cliched, unassailable credential, a synonym for virtue.

Early in the proceedings, held at the Ethan Allen Center in Burlington, those conceits evaporated.

"Sustainability is in the eye of the beholder," said Charlie Baker, the executive director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.

With that caveat, the discussion broadened and sharpened. It will re-emerge, somewhat streamlined, at a meeting in July, as well as online.

Meanwhile, "sustainability" emerged from the group not as a static goal, but as a series of persistent, perennial and sometimes nagging questions.

The scope of those questions is spelled out in the project's name, ECOS — an acronym for Environment, Community, Opportunity and Sustainability.

Within three years, and with the help of a $1 million federal grant, ECOS will attempt to reconcile forward-looking plans from Chittenden County communities, regional utilities, businesses and nonprofit advocacy groups.

It will sound out road-builders, wildlife biologists, teachers, manufacturers and others, and determine if and where they might be barking up the same tree.

Why bother? Because overlapping goals, formalized on paper, will help preserve what is best about the county, shore up its shortcomings and revive its competitive edge, Baker said: "Sustainability recognizes the interdependence of people, culture, economy, urbanized and rural environments."

The 'big one'

Traced to its etymological roots, "sustain" refers to something that holds up something from beneath, such as a tree root or a solid stone foundation wall.

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Chittenden County's roots and foundations are vulnerable, and they require thoughtful tending by those who know them best, keynote speaker Gov. Peter Shumlin told the ECOS group last week.

And, he noted, time is not on our side.

Amid rising costs, Vermonters still earn roughly the same wages they brought home a decade ago, he said, and rising waters in Lake Champlain indicate an urgency to forge problem-solving collaborations.

"We are living in a world where if we do not act on sustainability in our daily lives, in every way — from food to transportation to energy to how we build our buildings — this planet won't be livable for future generations," he added. "Now, that's kind of a big one."

With ever-mounting challenges to ingenuity, Shumlin said, "we've got to keep asking, 'What do we do?'"

Burlington City Council President Bill Keogh said taxpayers certainly would weigh in on the issue from time to time.

In another corner, the 12-member economy subcommittee batted around definitions for cost-benefit and affordability that would stand the test of time.

Seth Bowden, director of business development at the Greater Burlington Industrial Corp., took a stab.

"Sustainable happens when the next generation has equal or better opportunities than the one that came before," he said.

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A short list

Those groups' tidy flip-charts succumbed to colored-marker strike-throughs, as did those charts assembled by subcommittees tackling Chittenden County's built environment, natural resources and community.

From a distance, they all appeared to be connecting the dots on an Impressionist painting.

Careful, now

Could the list serve as a template for transportation planning, as well as for stewardship of bear habitat? For entrepreneurs in the Intervale and at Taft Corners? For elderly housing and groundwater protection?

Common purpose will at least increase the chances for productive debate, said Michele Boomhower, the executive director of the Chittenden County Municipal Planning Organization.

"If we can create priorities, we can agree how we measure our progress," she said. "If we can measure our progress, there's a much better chance that we'll avoid duplication and waste."